Budget food recommendations - what do you buy that's nice on the bank balance and the taste buds?

[aSilverLining]

Mine are

Sainsbury's basic fair trade tea bags. 80 nice tea bags for about 30p.

Asda's smartprice salsa dip.

Asda's smartprice crisps esp cheesy puffs are good

not really brands but at the moment we are living on

homemade soup
chick peas
kidney beans
lentils

as they are cheap and filling

nice olives

Lakeland had 3 really nice jars of olives and a lovely olive wood spoon in their sale £14.99 down to £4.99

For roasts (and cold for sandwiches/salads later) brisket or breast of lamb. Jacket potatoes also a good stand by. Home made soup for lunches, with a nice loaf of bread.

neck of lamb

cheap and delicious

I love olives Laurie

Shin beef nice in slow cooker for various meals (stews, cassroles, curries, etc) and cheap.

I eat a lot of homemade soups and baked potatoes too, especially in this cold weather!

Spag bol is delish and only costs around 3 pounds for ingriediants , and its easy to make, plus you dont feel like you are 'making do'

Jacket potatoes always feel like a treat to me, especially with good quality salt and pepper.

Red lentils and puy lentils are cheap but taste lovely.

Roasted root vege.

Cheese and onion toasted sarnies!

I could live on pasta and arriabiata sauce. Such a cheap easy meal but one of my favourites.

Pork belly. A big piece will cost you around £3.50-£4.00 max and will do at least one meal.

Boil it (whole) for 10 minutes. Drain, then fry, skin side down, for 15 minutes. Put it into a large pan, and add:

4fl oz dark soy sauce
4fl oz water
4fl oz rice wine vinegar
4 tablespoons sugar (or sugar substitute, e.g. Splenda, if you're not keen on that much sugar)
4 tablespoons of light soy sauce

Bring to the boil, reduce the heat to the lowest possible, cover the pan and then cook for 3 hours. (Check occasionally that the pan hasn't boiled dry - you may need to add more water as you are aiming to end up with a fair quantity of liquid to use as a sauce)

Serve with boiled rice and stir fried greens or veg.

The pork will just fall apart as it is so tender, and the liquid makes a fabulous sauce on the rice.

this chicken curry recipe is really yummy and really cheap.

I take the skin off of the chicken to cut the fat and the bag of soup mix is just a handful of lentils and some root veg.

Before the end of cooking I always take the chocken out and shred it and mix back through - that way it really goes a long way.

Lamb neck for Jamie Oliver's lamb and pistachio kebabs - very cheap.

Chicken thighs - £2-ish for four free range in sainsburys use in casseroles etc

Sains basics croissants and pain au chocolat are loads cheaper and dead nice

Buy some harrissa paste or dried harissa spice mix (even cheaper) and add to veg and pulse casseroles to make them taste like a tagine. Serve with cous cous.

Badge, what do you do wqith yer neck of lamb?

curry or casserole, mostly - N-french-style with herbs, moroccan with dates, proevncal with beans, irish with pearl barley

DH has recipes at hi sfingertipos but most were inspired by waitrose cards

this one is particularly good

Looks nice.
Thanks.
I have a coupe in my freezer but don't think I've prepred this cut beofre.

i buy tuna napolitana packet and add ingredients which are milk, tomata puree, butter and cook pasta. very filling, quick and easy to do.

smoked mackerel for lunch for me and dd and lambs liver once a week - thats so cheap and so tasty if you cook it right.

I do a pork belly thing like that, BecauseImWorthIt. Good additions are a chunk of fresh ginger and some spring onions. Also a fresh chilli sliced finely is good if your family likes spicy food. If you can get a pork hock, this is even cheaper (a couple of quid for one hock) and just as delicious.

I like the beef brisket in Sainsbury's - about a fiver for a big piece which will do two meals for our family of three. You can pot roast it with root veg or turn it into a casserole with tomatoes and red wine or stew it plainly and it feels quite luxurious for not too much money. Their basics stewing beef is also excellent for £2.50 per pack.

Basics tuna is very good for pasta sauces at 55p per can - I do a tuna cannelloni with a thick tomato sauce with plenty of garlic plus leeks and other veg for stuffing inside dried cannelloni tubes. Cover with the rest of the tomato sauce, a layer of cheese sauce and grated cheese on top. It's cheap, filling and tasty. And you can add lots of veg to the tomato sauce to bulk it out.

My children love Udon noodles - so a 5 min meal with very little prep would be to cook them with some chicken stock (Knorr in my case), broccoli florets, sliced carrots and bockwurst (Aldi fan here!). Or stirfry with garlic & soy sauce with whatever veg/meat you have in. They love this such a lot that I even visited an oriental cash & carry just to buy the packets of Udon noodles in bulk. I think that I paid around £10 for a box of 30 pks so 0.33 each. After Xmas, I had too much sausagemeat in the freezer which we didn't use and I ended up making a fantastic bolognaise sauce out of it. I'll be doing that again. One of my favourites is fish chowder which is basically potato & sweetcorn soup with smoked cod/haddock in.

I'm pretty much living off spaghetti and light phillidelphia - either plain or garlic and herb, a little boring but very cheap (pregnant so eating habits are a little odd to say the least )

Pasta puttanesca is delicious, and mostly uses things you might have in your cupboard anyway (tinned tomatoes, capers, anchovies, chilli flakes, onions, garlic, plus some fresh basil). Tastes nice and summery which I often crave at this time of year.

Alternatively, roast root veg with puy lentils and watercress makes a delicious wintery salad, esp with some feta cheese crumbled on top. Puy lentils are also really good with sausages if you do extra. Another good salad is smoked mackerel with watercress; this is also really good in a granary bread sandwich with cream cheese, pepper and lemon juice.

Selby - check the ingredients on the Knorr stock cubes. IIRC they contain MSG, ie monosodium glutamate, which is not something I'd give a child or eat myself. Generally the organic cubes tend to avoid this, as does Marigold bouillon powder.

Wo loads of good ideas, I love my food. I am getting tired and stuck in a rut cooking for myself (DS has sensory issues making main meals awkward), so thought sharing tips I might get some new ideas to try.

Like the sound of lamb and pistachio kebabs!

Belly pork is one thing I have never ever cooked, is it nice??

Jamiejay - I often do that as a quick meal. It's nice with sliced mushrooms, courgettes, and smoked ham or bacon and black pepper added too but understand if your pregnancy tastebuds wouldn't allow it.

Belly pork is fab, particularly slow cooked. It's good slow roasted - takes about three hours and the best thing is that you get masses of chewy crunchy sticky crackling instead of just a little bit per person. When I roast it, I just put it in a smallish dish on a bed of sliced onions with some water or a glass of wine plus extra water as needed. The liquid under the meat at the end makes lovely gravy.

thereistheball - I'm aware of that but I don't deliberately avoid MSG. I use soy sauce too and that contains MSG too and many people don't know that if you want to truly avoid MSG, they should stop buying anything listed as having 'yeast extract' too which means a wide range of food! BTW, I am a foodie (can't avoid it as a child of restauranteurs). Generally, I choose my ingredients for their taste NOT whether they are marketed as 'organic' Processed stock cubes are for convenience - if I was that concerned, I wouldn't use them at all and just use my own HM stock. Sorry if this is OTT but I get very cross with the 'I only feed my children organic processed food' line especially on a budget thread.